Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Humanophile" data-source="post: 1623441" data-attributes="member: 1049">Interesting.  When I read this, I saw both Death and Havendash both being, at heart, LN types.  Goes to show how different first-reads give rise to different ideas on the subject.The one advantage that living armies have over undead ones is that they replinish.  I don't see Death as continually rebuilding his armies, so the humans who are able to learn and improvise should have, for the most part, shut down the bulk of killer undead.  If you want the undead to replenish, have a few freakish examples retain/gain intelligence, and spellcasting power, to serve as proper undead lords.  (You said you didn't want to do this on a large scale, but one or two undead empires could be nice targets without overwhelming the populace; these people are damn well trained against undead, they should be able to take out a skeleton/zombie horde even without magic, so undead kingdoms won't be able to expand too far.)The "ressurrection without magic" angle strikes me as a little odd, as does the idea that your party is the only group of people who came back.  (I'm assuming that they, as heros, have a few levels under their belts.  When one dies, I find a non-magically able, non-heroic person reappearing to fill their shoes a little silly.  Sure, some exceptional town militia members might exist, but you're boned if you want to play a caster.)  It might be interesting to see a few more parties come about, as TPK insurance, and to allow the PC's to interact with their contemporaries and help rebuild that way.  You needn't worry about the PC's being overshadowed; one group out of all the ressurrectees might as well be the most powerful, it might as well be the PC's, who end up as leaders, but I'd rather they not have "Protagonist" stamped quite so clearly on their foreheads.  That's just my personal taste, though.And it's probably the Pratchett fan in me, but while I do see Death as the merciless type who would have no qualms killing massive numbers of people to remove the "benefit" of cheating him, I don't see any abject cruelty involved.  Killing a universal force should be damned near impossible, and unwise even if doable, so the ultimate resolution should somehow hinge on confronting Havendash.  Alternately, Death has done his bit, will only personally intervene if Havendash's curse is lifted (or if he otherwise tries to buck his fate and "rebuild"), and otherwise is leaving the world to clean up and rebuild from devastation.  The latter would actually interest me more, as it lets the PC's see tangible signs of their progress in growing communities, infrastructure, and confidence, and gives them a millenia-old lich (and a possibly sympathtic foe, at that) as an endgame antagonist when he tries to buck Death's punishment, risking another wave of ire across the world.  (Bonus points if Havendash incognito supports the PC's early on, as he sounds like he has both pragmatic and ego reasons for wanting civilization rebuilt.)And finally, for Death who seems so wrath-of-heaven omnipotent, we do have to remember that this whole thing started because he was bargained with.  The hows and whys of bargaining with Death - both in general and in this specific case - need at least some thinking out.  The PC's may need to bargain (or possibly gamble) with Death at some climatic moment, best to have at least the ideas simmering in the back of your head before they become needed.</blockquote>

Verification